Less NR Deer tags soon to come in MT

[Fireflyfishing]

Fish and Wildlife Commission votes to reduce nonresident deer licenses

The changes are aimed at reducing hunting pressure on public land and bringing the state’s flagging mule deer population out of a multiyear decline.

montanafreepress.org

 

[Jaden Bales]

Interesting. Just crunched some numbers on this. We can all agree Montana is probably the most liberal mule deer hunting state in the union. Nevada is probably the most conservative of the West.

That said, there are about as many deer in Region 7 as the entire state of Nevada. 2024 Nevada mule deer harvest: 5,367 mule deer. 2024 Montana Region 7 mule deer harvest: 7238 mule deer. That's a 8% harvest of the population in Nevada versus 10% in Montana. This is assuming harvest estimates are somewhat effective.

While crowding certainly is real, I just am consistently worried we believe hunters have a bigger impact on the critters that are out there than we do. Can we shoot out the top age class, I'd say so! Especially because we are selecting for the top few percentage of bucks. But, as weather patterns are favorable, Montana will likely bounce back to 2019-2021 numbers and I'd like to see opportunity bounce back the same. Just don't see it happening and a Montana General opportunity hunt will take 5 preference points to draw in a few years.

This is more overall commentary on trends in the West and I don't see it being great for keeping nonresidents advocating for habitat and access. Just making the pie smaller.

 

[Fireflyfishing]

Well, there’s no doubt liberal hunting seasons are an issue. I think reduction in tags to the NR hunters is a good start, but I would like to see more draw tags for residents as well.

 

[realunlucky]

Non residents are an easy target but rarely have that much impact on a resource. We could look at the data but montana currently only half ass collects it and then FWP fakes the rest with out dated modeling. Push for mandatory reporting so you can make it intelligent arguments based on factual harvest numbers.

You want bigger and better deer hunting in montana don't hunt them for weeks on end when they are the most vulnerable.



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